A groundbreaking attempt to “cure” Type 1 diabetes with stem cells began last week. Embryonic stem cell implants were given to two people, one in the US and one in Canada, with high-risk Type 1 diabetes. The researchers hope that this will help the patients manage the condition. The stem cells, developed by private company ViaCyte,…

Researchers have discovered a new class of antibiotic that could become critical in the fight against antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea. The multi-drug resistant strain of the sexually transmitted infection is causing serious concern within the medical world and it’s hoped that this new class of compounds could help halt its spread. The team stress that it is still early days, but…

Scientists say they have found a way to trick the heart into pumping more blood and growing more healthily, as it would during exercise or pregnancy. The research could reduce the need for transplants. The study, led by The Ottawa Hospital and published in Cell Research, involved a protein called cardiotrophin 1 (CT1). They found…

Super-gonorrhea is not as super as it sounds. Last month, the World Health Organization (WHO) released two rather daunting studies saying that this sexually transmitted disease is becoming increasingly more resistant to antibiotics, creating strains of “super-gonorrhea” that are tougher, if not impossible, to treat with the usual medicines. Just super, right? Scientists are…

Re-examination of two teeth found in a Sumatran cave in the 1880s has filled a major gap in our picture of human migrations, revealing that modern humans were living in Indonesia sometime between 63,000 and 73,000 years ago. Just a few weeks ago, evidence placed humans in northern Australia 65,000 years ago. Even before that,…

An exceptionally well-preserved skull dug up in East Africa is thought to represent the last common ancestor of all living apes, from gibbons to humans. The remains are those of an infant animal that died 13 million years ago, and could shed light on the early emergence of the lineage that would eventually give rise to…

One of the biggest hauls of bones from woolly mammoths and dinosaurs has been found by Russian scientists, The Siberian Times reports. The site is located at Bolshoy Ilek near the Chulym River in central Russia. The bones were found by accident by an expedition this summer led by Dr Sergey Leschinsky from Tomsk State…

The venom of anguimorph lizards, including the Komodo dragon, could provide targeted treatments to prevent strokes and heart attacks. A study of the venoms of these lizards, and the teeth they use to deliver them, has revealed considerable diversity, which could lead to highly targeted medicines. Until recently, it was thought that venom was rare…

Many of the world’s most creative minds have been associated with alcohol, from iconic writers like Ernest Hemingway and Hunter S Thompson to famous actors and musicians like Oliver Reed and Jim Morrison. While it’s fair to say many of these people overdid the booze (to say the least), there is evidence to suggest that…

Do you like optical illusions? Sure you do. And what better way to spend your day than seeing another. Let’s take a look now. This optical illusion below is particularly trippy. It shows a variant of what’s called the “Café Wall Optical Illusion” and was created by a magician from Atlanta called Victoria Skye. In…

NASA researchers have proposed a tethered CubeSat mission to explore the Moon like never before. The concept would allow for a low-altitude study of the Moon to explore its extremely thin atmosphere. The mission hopes to answer the mystery of the lunar swirls, light and dark swirling patterns that have been observed at over 100 locations across the…

The Milky Way might be hiding up to 100 million black holes from us, far more than previously thought. This number is the result of a statistical census trying to estimate how common black holes of certain sizes should be. The research, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, began by the detection…